AI-Generated Images Can’t Get Protection, Says US Copyright Office – Report

The U.S. Copyright Office has decided that a comic book created with an artificial intelligence program can have a copyright registration. But the office also said individual AI-generated images couldn’t be granted protection, according to a Wall St. Journal report.

The decision centers on an 18-page graphic novel, Zarya of the Dawn, created last year by software developer and author Kris Kashtanova using written prompts to the AI software Midjourney to create the book’s images.

After a long review, the Copyright Office has decided that the individual AI-generated images would be excluded from the copyright.

In a letter, the Copyright Office ruled that the “unpredictable output of Midjourney” meant that the author didn’t create the individual images.

“Because Midjourney starts with a randomly generated noise that evolves into a final image, there is no guarantee that a particular prompt will generate any particular visual output,” the letter from the Copyright Office said.

The ruling comes at a time where the AI frontier for creators is being established. Critics claim that AI merely sifts through text and images under copyright to create new works. This is done without permission or acknowledgement.

Already, books, magazine and news articles, and artwork created using AI is appearing in the marketplace. Amazon has more than 200 books credited to ChatGPT.